DrugsVenezuela president’s relatives engaged in drug smuggling to help his campaign

Published 3 November 2016

Jury selection began in New York yesterday (Wednesday) in the drug trial of two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady. The two appeared in Manhattan federal court, charged with trying to put together a multimillion-dollar drug deal for the purpose of shoring up President Nicolas Maduro’s weakening hold on power. In secret taping of conversations with the two nephews, made by DEA informants, the two were not shy saying that the millions they would make in drug dealings would be used to help members of their family, including Maduro, in the coming December elections for Venezuela’s National Assembly.

Jury selection began in New York yesterday (Wednesday) in the drug trial of two nephews of Venezuela’s first lady. The two appeared in Manhattan federal court, charged with trying to put together a multimillion-dollar drug deal for the purpose of shoring up President Nicolas Maduro’s weakening hold on power.

Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, 31, and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 30, are the nephews of Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife.

StreetInsider reports that U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty questioned potential jurors about their backgrounds and interests – but also about their familiarity with Venezuelan politics.

In November 2015 the Haitian police arrested the two men in Port-au-Prince, adding more pressure on Maduro, who is already facing a collapse of public support as a result of the rapidly deteriorating Venezuelan economy.

The Haiti arrest followed several independent U.S. probes which have found links between individuals tied to the government in Venezuela and drug traffickers. The State Department said its experts have conduced that Venezuela has become the preferred route for moving drugs from South America to North America and Europe.

Prosecutors say the two nephews tried to use their political and family connections to become players in the lucrative drug trafficking business – and were in the process of arranging to use a Venezuelan airport to send hundreds of kilograms of cocaine to Honduras, and from there to the United States.

Prosecutors say that Maduro, his family, and his political allies have convinced themselves that the United States is secretly providing large amounts of money to the Venezuelan opposition, which aims to defeat Maduro’s governing party in the forthcoming December elections for the country’s National Assembly. Maduro’s Socialist Party has already lost its majority in the Assembly in the previous elections, and is governing with the support of smaller parties.

The involvement of the Maduro family in drug trafficking is seen as motivated, at least in part, by what they see as the need to counteract the U.S. financial support for the opposition.

The prosecution said that among its key witnesses will be two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informants who posed as Mexican drug cartel members and who met with the nephews in Caracas, and recorded their meetings.

Judge Paul Crotty said he will allow jurors to hear tape recordings of the suspects talking to the DEA informants.

StreetInsiderreports that the defendants’ attorneys tried to block the tapes from being used as evidence, saying that the tapes were “highly politicized,” but prosecutors argued that the many political statements on the tape proved that the drug dealing was politically motivated, and that the two nephews were not shy saying that the millions they would make would be used to help members of their family, including Maduro, in the December elections.

Judge Crotty rejected the defense attorneys’ motion, saying that the recordings were “probative of the defendants’ motive to carry out the scheme.”